It’s a dog’s life

It is a well-known fact that most adults are now chronically sleep-deprived. After months of carefully considering the socio-politico-economic aspects of this intransigent, complex problem, two young men apparently decided that the answer was to introduce dog beds into the office as a trendy alternative to the traditional office chair for employees. That, at least, appears to the premise behind the “Plfufl”, itself what I can only imagine is an onomatopoeic word reminiscent of the sound an overtired employee at companies where they have piloted them (I didn’t get far enough into the video to find out if they had actually found any company trendy enough to actually trial oversized dog beds for empoyees) makes when collapsing into their dog bed at the start of their lunch break.

While most of the ‘serving suggestion’ style pics on their Instagram account are for people working from their dog bed in a home office, one does clearly show someone working from their Plufl in a luxury open-plan office. I was more intrigued by the fact that the way home offices all seemed to be larger than the shared staff office all of our library staff can staff pile at the same time, guessing the inventors are heavily engaged in aspirational selling here (read all about it in Lifestyle brands, available in the library and by postal loan). There, now be honest – you didn’t think I was going to be able to find a library tie-in to this, did you? Yet, somehow, I managed it.

I did wonder who was actually going to buy this crowdsourced project until I learned that TikTokkers everywhere are queuing up around the virtual block to buy one to prove they are still trendy, and therefore relevant. And assuming office staff don’t all rock up to work carrying man-sized dog beds when the Pflufl launches next year, I am quite sure there are St Bernards, Red Setters, Dobermans, Old English Sheepdogs, and other oversized dog breeds out there pressed up against computer monitors up and down the country as this advertisement plays, fantasising about curling up in a human-sized dog bed that is coincidentally just the right size for them.

So, there is a market for this unlikely product. I’m just not sure that a Plufl is coming to a professor’s office near you anytime soon.